This is very important formula for answering some interview questions

like

1. Tell me something about yourself

2. Why MBA?

3. Why this Institute?

And many other similar questions

This formula is called Irresistible Intrigue Formula.

It starts with Irresistible Hook and then opens an Intrigue Loop.

The basic purpose of it is Get Interviewers undivided Attention with an

absolutely Irresistible Hook and then Open Intrigue Story Loop

I will tell you how to use this formula in a moment but before I do that

I would like to talk about

What makes it work so very well?

I learned this framework while reading a book from a person who has

helped to raise over $450 million in Venture Capital.

The formula works on almost every situation. It can work while

negotiating your salary, raising the money or selling yourself in

interview.

First get this straight, you are noticed by an interviewer when you do one

or many things from this list

1. Being uniquely different

2. Being Authentic

3. Having guts to reject status quo and conformity

Now, lets understand this Hook + Loop Formula.

Whats the Hook anyways?

Hook is something uniquely amazing strength angle

Now, dont say that I dont have anything unique and compelling to say

or dont say I havent achieved anything substantial in the past few years.

In fact, I will show you few examples of it in a moment. (I am not a

high achiever either) plus I am going to give you specific sets of exercises

in GD/WAT/PI Revolution to find out your unique strength angles if you

are not able to find out any.

The simple reason why you dont need to do/dont need to have done

something very unique in order to make this formula to work because

there is not any information in the world that cant be reframed in a

way thats perceived as new and fresh.

The next logical step is

Open the loop

What creates this open loop?

Unfinished stories open loops.

Start idea/thought/story instead of finishing it and you move onto

something else. In other words, you keep the loop open.

Unfinished story threads create unresolved emotional tension which

creates cliffhanger effects.

I will even give you example of it just in a moment before I do that I

would like to give you an analogy.

Open story loops leaves you hanging.

Remember the scene from 24.

The Hero seems to get shot (the sniper moves crosshairs and his M14

sniper rifle over head of Jack Bauer & gently squeeze double set

trigger....BOOM)

But the episode ends right there.

Cliffhanger Effect.

If you dont how to create Cliffhanger effect

I have written my CAT Journey in 3 parts on Pagalguy, just see how I

opened the loops and didnt close it, left them hanging, it created

massive cliffhanger effects. Some people were went to such an extent

that they actually PMed me to ask me several times when I am going to

release the next article. (I do it in my emails almost all the time, if you

dont believe just check last 5-6 emails you got)

Here are these articles (study and model them)

http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/all-i-wanted-to-speak-about-cat-

16898142/17614893

http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/all-i-wanted-to-speak-about-cat-

16898142/17636206

http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/all-i-wanted-to-speak-about-cat-

16898142/17848779

This Cliffhanger ending impacts us on a subtle level. This effect is called

Zeigarnik Effect after a Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik who

noticed odd thing while sitting in a restaurant in Vienna, the waiters

seemed only to remember orders which were in the process of being

served. When completed, the orders evaporated from their memory.

Zeigarnik went back to lab to test out a theory about what was going on.

She asked participants to do twenty or so simple tasks in the lab, like

solving puzzles and stringing beads.

Afterwards she asked them which activities they remembered doing.

People were about twice as likely to remember the tasks during which

they were interrupted than those they completed.

Simply put Zeigarnik effect is about human tendency to remember

uncompleted or (interrupted) tasks more than the tasks already

completed.

The great English novelist Charles Dickens used exactly the same

technique.

His cliffhangers created such anticipation in peoples minds that his

American readership would wait at New-York docks for the latest

instalment to arrive by ship from Britain.

They were desperate to find out what happened next.

Three powerful points you need to remember and exploit during your

Personal Interview

1. People need to have closure

2. When they dont get closure, their response potential is increased.

Hint Hint .....

3.

Thats it.

Just remember these three points and you will be good. You will have

your interviewers undivided attention, instead of asking pointless &

silly questions, looking uninterested they will be more inclined to listen

to what you have to say and ask good questions.

Its not complicated as it looks.

Yeah, thats right.

I only listed two points above.

Thing is #3 is far too powerful for me to tell you about it.

I dont want many people exposed to this. I want to keep this piece for

GD/WAT/PI Revolution students.

Far too powerful to just give out.

Perhaps I will tell you later. I dunno.

Lemme think about it

Now take action and implement it in real practice.

See how this to integrate this technique in your answers.

Warning: Dont use these effects in each and every answer, use it when

you feel its required to direct the flow of interview towards your

Strength points.

Did you feel a strange and strong urge to know what the 3rd

point is?

The truth is there is no point #3.

I was just demonstrating the effect on you. If I would have held this until

the end, you would have seen its real beauty.

Thats where it became 10x more effective.

I have been covertly using open loops/nested loops in almost

everywhere they are marked with blue, just check them out (I have

highlighted them with this colour)

Nested Loop: Open the loop within the loop.

Now the formula goes like this

1. Set the frame ( I will come to back to it little later)

2. Get their attention with Irresistible Hook

3. Open an Intrigue Story Loop

4. Tell the story (using multiple nested loops if you want)

5. Close the Loop on points (where you want to divert/direct your

interview i.e. strong points)

You can also plant the clues in your story in such a fashion that

Interviewer is compelled to ask you questions on these clues.

What happens most of the time is when you start, you tend to ramble

and talk about all the things which is already known to the interviewer,

there is no element of surprise, intrigue, thats why your interviewer gets

bored and starts grilling you with nonsense questions.

Dont use this formula in Group Discussions, Essay Writing

and SOPs.

It must be used only in case of One on One interaction i.e. Personal

Interview.

There is 3 step formula to answer any interview question

1. Understand Question behind the Question

2. Prepare answer in Plain English

3. Preparation

It means getting into interviewers head to understand what he/she really looking answer is for. Don't answer the surface level question, go deep. First Step is Understand Question behind the Question If you are asked this question

1. Tell me about your biggest weakness? The question behind the question is

1. What's your biggest weakness and how do you intend to develop in this area?

2. Tell me about your biggest mistake or failure

The question behind the question is 2. Tell me about your biggest mistake and what you've

learnt from it

It almost works every single time and this step forces you to identify question interviewer want you to answer.

Second step is Prepare your answer in plain English

After understanding question behind the question you need to prepare answer in plain English. You don't need to use big buzzwords, jargons, acronyms and superficial language and vague things.

Third step is Preparation

Dont say I already knew it because if you knew it already then you

wouldnt be reading this; you would already be studying in elite B-school.

If thats not the case, then read this.

The secret sauce is the method. I am going to tell you how to exactly do it.

Take a newspaper or article, read it aloud and speak each word slowly and very carefully in mic and record it on your smartphone or your Macbook ( laptop recording sucks big time) Now record for 2-3 minutes, hear the recording.

Now observe few things. 1. How does it sound? 2. Do you speak too fast or too slow? 3. Do you pronounce words clearly? If you were a listener of the news, would you want to listen to your voice EVER? (This is very important test because if you don't like your voice, then why would other people would want to hear about it) 4. Do you use take deliberate pauses and emphasize on right words?

Observe this and then do next set of round, take any topic of your choice, you have to talk about it for 2-3 minutes on it and record it. Again use the method I mentioned above. Observe few things. 1. How does it sound? 2. Do you speak too fast or too slow? 3. Do you pronounce words clearly? 4. If you were a listener of the news, would you want to listen to your voice EVER? 5. Do you take deliberate pauses and emphasize on right words? 6. Do you use filler words like "uh's" "ah's" "like's" "you know" from your speech. These are place-filler sounds designed to keep the listeners attention on you even while youre trying to think of what to say next.

Get rid of them. This will not happen overnight and it will take days/weeks/months of practice, but once these habits are ingrained inside you, you will never go wrong.

Deliberate Practice will help you to get rid of it. It's not Practice Makes Perfect. It's the Right Practice/Preparation make you Perfect.

Now, lets get back to frames.

Frames are point of view, a perspective, a position.

The Strongest frame always wins.

Your frame is your point of view. Another person can look at the same

thing you are through his frame and what he sees may differ by a little or

a lot. The common label people give this is perspective. I perceive and

interpret things differently than you do, even when were looking at the

same thing.

Why do frames matter?

There are thousands of MBA aspirants and each brings a unique

perspective, a frame, to every social encounter.

When two or more people come together to communicate setting during

Interview, the frames square off, then come into contact, but not in a

cooperative or friendly way.

Frames are extremely competitive especially during the Stress

Interview.

Remember, theyre rooted in survival instincts and each frame seeks to

sustain dominance, so when frames come together, the first thing they

do is collide.

This isnt a friendly competition, its a death match. Frames dont

merge. They dont blend and they dont intermingle. When they collide,

the stronger frame absorbs the weaker.

When your frame and another frame come together, they collide and the

stronger frame absorbs the weaker. This is what happens below the

surface of every GD or Personal Interview you attend.

If an interviewer asks you

Tell me something about

Little bit about my background.

I am a Chemical Engineer passed out in 2009 from UDCT (or ICT) ,

worked for a year in Manufacturing as a trainee Engineer. I learned

many practical things happening in actual industry, along with Kaizen,

Systems, SOPs, Checklists, Processes & lot of other things.

1. I have won many scholarships for Competitive Exams in school

related to Maths and Science.

2. I like to read non-fiction books especially related to Business,

Strategy, Marketing, Sales, and Productivity.

3. I have uncanny ability to actually take principles, strategies from

different industries and apply it to other industry.

For example,

I have learned about Theory of Constraints when I was working in a

Chemical Plant, I used it to create these piece of articles

http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/mba-prep-articles-

16898145/19827706

http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/mba-prep-articles-

16898145/19934260

And a course

http://mbakakeeda.com/break-free/

4. I also have experience in one on one selling for 1.5 years, where I

started learning a lot of things about Sales and Marketing and

while I was learning persuasion I learned about NLP (Neuro-

Linguistic Programming) I modelled it in book to teach MBA

aspirants to crack Stress Interview without trouble

Ace the Stress: How to Deploy 4 Secret Weapons to Obliterate Any

Challenge Posed by an Interviewer in Stress Interview

https://www.instamojo.com/SUKRUTKHAMBETE/ace-the-stress/

5. I also learned about Power of Systems when I was working in a

job and I learned importance of systems in day to day life, I used

them and combined them with novel principles of Neuro-

Science and successfully learned 6 new habits/skills.

6. I also used it to systematize Analyzing mocks and converted it into

simplified process anyone can use to increase their percentile

faster. I teach it into Percentile Maximizer

http://mbakakeeda.com/percentlie-maximizer-sequence/

After failing in a business and few product ideas and losing a lot of

money and I learned power of Market Research, Surveying, and

Validating business idea/product idea, Pre-selling which I use before I

even think of launching any product.

I do lot of upfront research to weed out loser ideas upfront and work on

only those ideas which are worthwhile my time.

The result is I rarely experience failure in Product/Business Ideas.

Now I deliberately used most of the examples you can relate to or you

know of, there are plenty of things you dont know about me and what I

do, so I am not going into the details of it here.

These are some of my hooks.

I will tell you how to develop your own hooks inside GD/WAT/PI

Revolution using specific sets of exercises and methods.

Now coming back to questions

Tell me something about yourself

What average aspirant will answer?

My name is Sukrut Khambete. I was very bright student in my school

days right from the start, I won prizes in many competitive exams in my

school and college days.

I opted for Chemical Engineering and after completion I worked for a

year in Manufacturing where I learned about Kaizen, Systems and lot

other practical things.

At this point, your interviewer has already started yawning, feeling

sleepy. He/she is hearing these lame responses for the last 2-3 hours or

maybe a whole day (i.e. 6-7 hours in some worst case scenarios)

You did obvious mistakes.

1. You are telling them whats mentioned in SOP or form

2. There is too much predictability

3. You stand no chance to shine amongst hundreds of other aspirants

You have already lost before you begin. These are few mistakes aspirants

make. I have highlighted the mistakes I did in answer above.

1. Too much details too fast ( predictability)

You have already started on predictable note; interviewers know

whats coming next.

They have already started thinking of a stupid question which they

are going to ask to interrupt you.

2. Too vague, too fuzzy (not clear thinking process)

3. No frame to provide context

4. Too similar to competition (no uniqueness)

Everybody starts talking about themselves in the same way i.e.

Chronological Fashion. There is nothing much talked about your

hooks. Thats why you dont have any chance to stand up against

the crowd, especially if you have no USP.

5. Neediness (no backup plans or confidence)

6. Going too slow (dont value time)

Now I will tell you

How I will use Irresistible Hook and Intrigue Story Loop method to

deliver answer that will not only stand out from the most of the crowd

but also draw undivided attention of the interviewer panel. (I will do that

without having lots of academic or workplace achievements, no IIT, NIT

tags, no extra-curricular, no co-curricular, no significant academic

achievements except few of them)

You need to use signalling behaviours and responses which triggers that

you are of high social value

Tell me something about yourself

(I will be picking important and irresistible hooks inside my story)

Here is the response

As you can see on my SOP/Form, there are lot of things I did it during

my school and graduation days which are not mentioned here,

apart from being exceptionally good at Maths and Science. (See I talk

about my being good at Maths and Science in a subtle way and I

introduce intrigue element of things which are not mentioned here ,

now I have got their attention, I tried to break free from the conventional

mould.)

Ive learned quite a few practical things including Kaizen, Systems,

Processes, during my stint at Manufacturing after I graduated from

UDCT.

I was working as a trainee in Manufacturing company, I started learning

about new processes and working of a manufacturing plant. Most

importantly I learned more about Systems, the knowledge I used to

systematically develop 6 new habits over the period of time combined

with few advanced principles of Neuro-Science, I will talk about them in

a moment but before I come to it, I would like to tell you what really

happened at my Job.

As I started, first thing I noticed was about Kaizen, it was new to me, it

meant continuous improvement, I think its really important element

which later proved out to be important element in developing these

habits, I also learnt about processes, checklists, SOPs and many things

which actually installed power of Systems in my mind.

I started seeing invisible connections everywhere. I was much more

fascinated by them.

I started reading books about it, I also saw how different businesses

leverage the systems to grow , during the period, I stumbled upon an

article related to Neuro-Science which talked about combining Power of

Systems to build habits using some advanced Neurological techniques.

I was fascinated by it and started reading it, I read few books on it

especially by Charles Duhigg and combining both, I developed new

habits/skills in short time.

Namely

1.

2.

3.

4.

As you can see on my SOP/Form, there are lot of things I did it during

my school and graduation days which I didnt mention there.

Ive quite a few things I learned during my stint at my Job. I was working

as a trainee in Manufacturing company, I started learning about new

processes and working of a manufacturing plant. Most importantly I

learned more about Systems, SOPs and checklist, I also started reading

more thing about it. I stumbled upon book by Israeli Physicist

And being able to my ability I integrated and XXX the learning and put it

into writing an article and creating a course.

Avoid these mistakes first